Model for me
by North of the North
Summary: Lars hires Mathew to model for him. However, he may be developing feelings for the body he sees everyday. He wants to fall in love with his personality too, but that Mathew makes sure to keep covered up.
1. Chapter 1

Mathew went to knock on the door of his new part-time employer. He had just recently finished his high school education and was spending a year traveling abroad before he joined the workforce of his homeland in Canada.

His expenses had not been too high as he had been couch surfing, so he hadn't needed to rent a room or anything, he had just needed to find a way to pay for his food, showers, and other basic needs. To give himself some experience, to cover his costs of living, and to fill out his extra time he had been doing little odd jobs everywhere he went using his visa. His year away from home was spent entirely in Europe, except for the small stop the plane had taken in the States, and where he was now was in the Netherlands. He had just come here from France and was looking for a job to do while he was there. A small advertisement for work in the paper had caught his eye. It was the first job he had seen.

The description as far as Mathew could tell was to help someone in their house doing small things needed for their job. It sounded okay and he was only going to be here for the next five months before he went home so Mathew had called in to ask for the address he needed to go to in order to accept the job and had headed out.

The house he was directed to was in a nice enough urban neighborhood, it didn't seem like it would be very dangerous. It was all brick apartment styled houses, all of them really well kept and clean looking. 'So far so good.' Then the door opened up in front of Mathew to the sight of a young male not much older than Mathew was with brown gelled up hair sticking up all over the place like a hedgehog and a noticeable scar coming down from his hair line. The person's clothes were rumpled, as if he had fallen asleep while wearing them and there was a thick smell of pot rolling off of him, it seemed to cling to the man's clothes. 'Alright then, that's not so good, let's just hope I don't have asthma like my mom does.'

_Pov change_

Lars opened up his door to a small blond male standing on his doorstep. 'Oh yeah, someone called about the job offer I put out. I guess this must be him.' His wavy hair was long enough to brush his slim shoulders lightly when he moved. He was dressed nicely in a casual t-shirt and greyish brown baggy cargo pants held up with a brown belt. His face was heart shaped and feminine, with wide purple eyes, long enough to notice golden eyelashes, and a small button nose. 'He's cute. No, that was bad to think of his definite future employee, bad, don't think like that. Very cute. I said to stop thinking like that. Stupid mind thoughts, messing with me.' Lars grumbled in his head. Then his brain took another thought detour. 'Is this the same guy that called me? Then again, the guy on the phone's voice was pretty quiet and girly. So, same person then? He looks like a girl; is he a girl? Nah, he doesn't have boobs, so I guess he is a guy then. What guy wears his hair like a girl?'

The stranger was still looking at him, he seemed to be getting very anxious at the attention Lars was aiming at him, he was showing little nervous habits, fidgeting with his shirt and such. So Lars awkwardly stuck out his hand to introduce himself before hurrying to invite the guy in before he was scared off. As the person passed him he nodded to acknowledge that he had heard his quiet mumble of "Um, hello, uh, um, my name is Mathew."

'Great, he probably only speaks in English. And he's kind of awkward. Well, I know how to speak English so this shouldn't be too hard to do.'

"Uh, my name is Lars. Do you want to come upstairs now and I'll show you what I would like you to do for me? You know, for the job?"

Mathew nodded, "Sure." His voice was still quiet. That would be fine though, Lars hated loud noises. This would work out perfectly for both of them.


	2. Chapter 2

"Move a bit that way. Wait, stop, yeah that's good. Can you stay like that for a bit?" Lars asked looking at Mathew from behind the canvas he was working on.

"Yeah, I can." Mathew nodded back from on top of Lars' bed, then remembered that he was supposed to stay still and stiffened. He'd been modelling for Lars for over three hours now, posing the best that he could with his limited expertise for him to draw. His muscles were stiff and his arms were starting to hurt and shake from him leaning his weight back on them for a very long time now.

He'd accepted the job once it had been explained to him. He had thought it sounded like something interesting to do and it was something he could tell his papa about when he went home. His papa would like him doing this as a job. His dad might freak out though and try to tell him that modelling was incredibly inappropriate, even though he still had his clothes on. It was still only the second day of doing this after all. His dad would find something wrong with what he was doing, then go ballistic. He didn't know how his brother, Alfred, would react though. He would probably react positively. His brother always had a good outlook on life. Alfred could find the good in everything it seemed. He would probably say that Mathew modelling was cool. He was a very predictable person sometimes.

Mathew sighed and turned his gaze without moving his head towards the only window in the room. He was glad that he had this to look at as it was very boring doing nothing at all for hours on end. It was the only thing he disliked about this job. The boredom, it was suffocating. But, the window was nice to look out of; it distracted him from the only other source of entertainment in the room, the person painting in front of him.

Lars finished drawing with a sigh, slowly putting down all his supplies neatly and stretching. As he went to wash his brushes with turpentine before he washed again with water and soup to put them away he heard Mathew get off of his bed, he could hear it creaking a bit he would need to get that fixed, and pad over to the not quite finished drawing he'd been working on.

"Do you like it?"

"Oh Lars, it's beautiful."

"Humph." Lars nodded and finished putting away his art supplies, the room was as neat as he could get it now. "Would you like a glass of water?"

"Sure." Mathew said.

It was as he was fishing two glasses out of his cupboard and pouring some water into both of them that a thought occurred to him.

"Hey, um, do you have somewhere to stay? Like somewhere you can stay at permanently while you're working here? You're only here temporarily right? Do you have decent housing?"

Mathew thought about it, accepting the glass that Lars handed over to him. "Hmm, not really. I'm just staying at a motel down the street a ways."

Lars nodded. They were silent for a while. Then Lars spoke, "Would you like to stay here then? It won't cost you anything and Lord knows this place is big enough for two people to fit inside comfortably."

Mathew smiled. "Sure, I'd like that. That's very kind of you."

Lars placed his glass down on the counter beside him and started walking towards the stairs. "It's no problem. If you've decided, I can help you move any stuff you have tonight then. But, first, we have work to do. Let's go." Lars called down as he vanished up the stairs to his work room.

Mathew sighed, set his own glass of water down, and followed him up the stairs. His muscles were already aching from earlier and the sore feeling coming from them was protesting against the thought of what he would be doing for the next while, using them.


	3. Chapter 3

Something big and heavy crashed to the ground somewhere in his house, and Lars jerked awake. For a moment, he wondered if he was blind now; he couldn't see a thing around him. Then his eyes adjusted to the dark; he could see what was in his room again, and he could concentrate on other things, like what had woken him up in the first place.

There was no sounds to be heard in the house; he couldn't tell what had startled him, yet, even so...it wouldn't hurt to stay up and see if something else happened, assuming there **was** something that had woken him up, just in case, right? The minimal amount of light filtering through his curtains hinted that it was close to dawn, when he normally got up. Maybe he could go have a bath, or something, to wake up better?

That sounded like a good idea.

In the process of grabbing a red button-up shirt from his dresser was when he heard another sound a few seconds later.  
The sound...like someone had moved a...door? Maybe.  
Then there was a grunt and the sound of something hitting the ground outside his window. Lars rushed to it, and peered out, keeping the good sense to not rustle the curtains, which might have attracted the person's, or whatever had made that sound's, attention.

It was Mathew outside.

It looked like he'd jumped from his own window in the room beside Lars', the one that he'd given him, his past guest room, and was dusting himself off, none the worse for wear after jumping a story down to the ground.

'What?'

Mathew didn't even look back at the house, let alone at Lars' window, before he took a glance both ways down the street, and took off at a run to the right.

'Where is he going? I don't even know...why? What could possibly need to be done in the middle of the night? What time is it anyway?'

His mind, of course, chose to lead him to the worst possible conclusions.  
Lars sighed. Thinking again, maybe he ought to go back to sleep. Maybe then, he could assume this had been a dream when it was truly morning, and not just a bit before dawn, when it was still night. Dreams belonged in the night, same as everything that happened during them. He could pretend that this had just been a dream, and respect Mathew's privacy. Or, he could pry and try to find out what he was doing.

Lars buried his face in his pillow, and willed for sleep to come and take him away from these thoughts, they weren't very inducing for sleep after all, and that's where he needed to be, right now.

Despite his decision from the night before, Lars still found himself opening his mouth several times to question Mathew when they were again in his studio, one painting, the other modelling, before he could finally force the words out.

"So, how did you sleep last night?" He asked.

"Fine." Mathew said.

Lars frowned. 'He's not going to say anything further? Maybe my question was too vague to get him to reply with the response I truly want: where he went last night.'

Mathew had turned to stare at him curiously.

'No,' Lars thought. 'I need to stop now. I shouldn't pry. It could be that he is sensitive about this. Maybe he just wanted to clear his head last night, and went for a walk to do so. I shouldn't push him about this, though. He'll clam up if I do. He'll open up, and tell me about it...eventually.'

Mathew had completely abandoned what they had been doing before by that point; he was just sitting there now looking at Lars, and probably wondering what was up with him that he would ask a question, then wander off into lala land.

"You moved." Lars finally said. "I'll need to start over now."

Mathew's face reddened in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry." He said.

"Don't be sorry," Lars replied. "Be ashamed."

* * *

Before the hour is up, and Christmas ends I wanted to post **something. **So, well, merry Christmas guys.


End file.
